Seinfeld wasn't "fired," or "canned," or "cancelled," or "let go." The company said from the early going that the Seinfeld commercials were "teaser ads" meant to stir conversation and debate, and tee up this next round of ads.

It's not often that a company like Palm enjoys "bellwether" status, but such is the unusual result of these crazy times on Wall Street where investors are breathlessly searching for any kind of sign post they can find.

If so many things in life come down to timing, today is a day Oracle would probably rather avoid. The Dow's off more than 800 points in a couple of days this week; the Nasdaq plunged more than 100 points just yesterday.

Google will hardly be a me-too vendor. I'm sure the new HTC "Dream" phone will be feature-rich. But how it looks and how it feels might eclipse what it does since there are so many other options out there for consumers right now.

This has been a crazy week on the markets, and it's still only Tuesday morning out here in Silicon Valley. But look no further than the stalwarts in the PC business, like Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Dell to see a new kind of volatility index.

There was a time not too long ago when Hewlett-Packard simply became "HP." I'm not talking about the "HP" it's always been known as, but "HP" as the official new name of the company, supplanting Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, and joining the ranks of KFC as a company running the risk of forgetting history for the sake of convenience and short-hand.

The background is this: Balsillie has been Jonesing for an NHL team for the past several years. He looked close to getting a deal done for the financially strapped Pittsburgh Penguins. When that didn't work out, he started to focus on the Nashville Predators.

I had a feeling my early morning post about Dan Lyons and his Apple monopoly mongering might engender some choice responses from some of you. But some of these posts might surprise you. Here's a taste:

This is the guy who is running arguably the most effective, most innovative company in arguably one of the most exciting and dynamic sectors in tech. And he just doesn't tend to sit down for TV interviews.

Apple owned the spotlight yesterday with its iPod event in San Francisco, but today and tomorrow it will all be about Research in Motion, with CEO Jim Balsillie preparing to keynote the big CTIA Wireless expo Thursday, which comes a week before the company issues its quarterly earnings.

Steve Jobs is healthy, was taken by surprise by all the speculation about his health swirling around him after his last public appearance in June, and says while he could "stand to gain 10 or 15 pounds," he's doing just fine.

Yet this time around, it seems to me that Apple is laboring to manufacture the magic. Investor expectations have been ratcheting up at fever pitch for four straight years. It's simply getting more difficult to wow them every time.

A few weeks ago, I detailed in a blog Microsoft's decision to use comedian Jerry Seinfeld as its new pitchman. I wrote then of the unusual choice of a professional complainer who hasn't done anything meaningful since his show Seinfeld went off the air a decade ago.